Haunting In Terra Nova
by morninsunshines
Summary: A Halloween story. Washington is dead, right.


I PUT QUOTATION MARKS AROUND THE TELLING OF THE STORY, DON'T KNOW IF IT WAS RIGHT OR NOT.

The old man sat in the honored spot before the roaring fire, eyes dim, thoughts a century old haunting him, a story he was compelled to tell. The children waited for him to begin speaking. He was guided from his home, one hand on the shoulder of his great grandson, the other on a gnarled cane he claimed his father used in old age. The evening was cool, but it was the Harvest Festival after all.

"Elder, tell us a story from when you were a boy," a young girl prodded, bringing his gaze to bear on her.

"Funny you should be the one to ask, young Alicia Taylor. Lately I've been reflecting on the time Terra Nova was haunted."

"My dad says there's no such thing as ghosts," ten-year-old Moby Guzman spoke up.

The old man chuckled, his missing teeth making black holes in his mouth and the remaining yellowed with age. "I guess I'll go home now, since you won't believe in the only time a ghost haunted the old colony."

"No don't go," several young ones pleaded and gave Moby glaring looks. Moby relented, "Okay, tell us, but I'll not believe."

"Fair enough," the old man paused, gathering himself. "I'd been in the colony for not quite two years and wasn't even twenty, still just a kid. Have you heard the story of how Alicia Washington was killed by Lucas Taylor?"

The kids looked puzzled and shook their heads. Eight-year-old Nathan spoke up, "Alicia Washington died of natural causes at the age of eighty-eight. We learned that in school, and who is Lucas Taylor?"

"The story is sealed. Only I have a record of the events and am the last living person to have ever heard it. A plexpad was passed from person to person upon the death of an original colonist until it resided with me. I never expected to be the only surviving person from that time or to outlive the entire next generation. For a hundred and ten years since the haunting, I've walked this world, waiting to join my family and friends. When I die, I'll be the last person to witness the ghost that came to Terra Nova. I'm telling this story because my time here is over and I'll be joining my family and friends soon."

He missed the elders crowding behind the kids as his eyes were dim. Once a year the old man told a story about the past and it was always at the Harvest Festival. Not one elder could remember a time when he didn't tell a story at this festival. They were always about the past before the elders were born. Mostly the old man preferred his own company and walked daily to Memorial Field to talk to his friends and family, forgoing the company of the younger crowd, as he called them, although some were in their eighties. He was almost one hundred and thirty, the oldest person ever to live in the colony. He began his story and silence descended.

"_Seven year old Zoe Shannon was in her bedroom having just gone to bed. Her piercing scream cut through the house, causing her parents to jump from their spots in the living room. Rushing in, the parents crowded around their child's bed. It was obvious she was frightened out of her mind and having trouble breathing. Her body was trembling when she jumped into her father's arms, throwing arms around his neck and burying her head in his shirt."_

"_Was it a bad dream?" Jim Shannon asked._

_She shook her head, "I wasn't asleep yet. She was standing by my bed, looking down at me."_

"_Who was, honey," her mother asked._

"_Lieutenant Washington."_

_Jim and Elizabeth looked in shock at each other over her head._

_A sad look flashed across Jim's face as he put his youngest back to bed. Sitting on the edge of her bed, he pushed her hair off her face, "She's been gone a year now. I think you must have been between awake and sleep. Maybe a dream was starting before you were completely out and it confused you." Her father desperately tried to find an explanation._

_Josh, who'd been leaning in the doorway wasn't much help, "Next time you see her, ask how she likes being dead."_

"_JOSH," both parents screamed together and he wisely disappeared._

_The next night, Maddy Shannon was working in Malcolm Wallace's lab. She looked up and in the reflection of the glass was Lieutenant Washington. Maddy froze and remembered Zoe telling her seeing the Lieutenant the night before. Being older, but no less frightened, she looked in the reflection as her hands started shaking uncontrollably. The apparition faded and she spun to an empty room. Not knowing who to tell and knowing the family instructed Zoe not to say anything, she went looking for her fiancé Mark Reynolds._

"_It's been one year that the Phoenix took over and memories are returning. I can't think of another explanation," Mark admitted. "With the Shannon family's vivid imagination, I'm not surprised you and Zoe are seeing ghosts."_

"_You're no help," but being with another person made her feel better. She told her parents and they rationalized it had to be the time of year._

_The very next day Elizabeth Shannon in the operating theater prepping a patient, a young woman with dark hair. She glanced at her face, and the eyes opened and she was looking into the face of Lieutenant Washington. So convinced was she, that she had the reincarnated lieutenant on her table, she called her name, "Alicia do you hear me."_

_Nurse Ogawa chose that moment to enter, "That's Andrea, not Alicia."_

_Dr. Shannon looked at her like a stranger, "I…I don't think I'm able to operate today. I need a break," and she rushed out. In the fresh air she stopped. "I must have let Zoe's fantasy get to me," she spoke out loud and went to the market for something to drink and a place to sit and reflect on what she was sure she saw. She was sure the form was illuminating and the lieutenant was an overlay._

_Nathaniel Taylor was leaning over the balustrade, a sad expression on his rugged features that hadn't stayed long off face for a year. That expression said he was thinking of her._

"My grandmother said she knew them when she was a small child, how can the lieutenant be dead? That's not possible." Nine-year-old Sarah Reynolds asked.

The old man was looking into the past.

"It did happen. I was present remember."

"_The Commander saw an agitated doctor go towards the market when she should be working and was curious. He followed and sat across from her. _"_Done with Andrea's surgery already?"_

"_No, Nathaniel, I'm just having a mental breakdown. That's the best way I can describe it."_

_He forced a smile. He knew this part of the year would give him problems, just not how much or that it would affect more than just him, "One of the kids causing the breakdown or a husband."_

_She forced a smile in return, "The overactive imagination of a seven year old that has the rest of us seeing ghosts."_

"_And what ghost did my little girlfriend see?" Nathaniel and Zoe formed a special friendship where only she was allowed to enter the Command Center, which was off limits to minors."_

"_I don't want to upset you. It was a child's nightmare, nothing more."_

"_And why would her nightmare affect an old man like me?"_

"_Because Zoe, Maddy and now I, have all seen Lieutenant Washington."_

_His face became impassive, "What brought this on?"_

"_I think she's on our minds, being last year at this time we were occupied."_

_He sighed, "I didn't want to hold a memorial for her. I wanted to minimize what happened to our colony. Maybe she's unhappy and wants a day in her honor." That sad, desolate look was back._

"_You still think she's with us?" Elizabeth hadn't the nerve to bring her up. He barely made it through the funeral and disappeared for six months, hunting the Phoenix as a renegade, depleting their numbers until they were no more. The Sixers were harder to track down, but he brought proof of each kill back in the form of a scalp. They hung on the poles until he died._

"_She's with me in spirit. I wish I could see her again," he admitted._

"_Do you think there's more to us seeing her than our wishful thinking?"_

"_In this new world, I believe anything's possible. Maybe the gulf between living and dead is close. It would be nice to see them again."_

"_Do you think there's a portal, like the one we came through between us and them?"_

"_Next time someone sees her, they need to try and contact," he hoped it was him and was hurt she didn't come to him first._

"_You think there will be a next time?" she sounded doubtful._

"_Three days in a row. She's trying to tell us something. I firmly believe my Wash didn't go far. Sometimes in the dark, I can feel her with me. That's why I go OTG after dark so much. I talk to her. People would think I'm crazy if I went around telling Wash this and that in the day time."_

"_I think those scalps don't help your cause."_

"_They are a reminder of what we went through and overcame, they stay."_

_Word spread of the Wash sightings and everyone waited for dark that night to see if she'd appear again. Midnight approached and the colonist one by one went to bed. Nathaniel still sat at his desk, hoping._

"_She did appear."_

"Who saw her?" five-year-old Dawson Reynolds asked.

"_Me. I was walking home from work and heard footsteps beside me. I looked around and didn't see anyone at first, but every time I took a step, there was an echo. Then I saw her pale white ghostly form. She was dressed like the night she was killed. There is nothing as frightening as seeing the dead. I kept walking towards home and she walked right along with me. I asked the first thing that came to my mind, "How can I hear your footsteps."_

"Did she answer?" Four-year-old Tommy's eyes were big.

_She looked right through me and in a haunting voice told me, "My death was a mistake. I'm not supposed to be dead." _

_I asked if she were a zombie, you know the un-dead. _

_She replied, "No, I'm not dead. I'm in stasis right now."_

"_Can I touch you?" I was young and over the years pondered the many questions I could have asked instead of that one._

"_My time is over for now," and she was gone._

_I reversed my course and went looking for the Commander. He turned pale when I recounted my story._

_The next night she appeared to Thomas Boylan. Poor man almost had a heart attack twenty years before the one that killed him._

"_Good to see you again, Wash," Boylan recovered faster than the rest of us, probably due to a liberal amount of his own libation he'd already consumed._

"_Time is running out for me to come back to the colony. I'm not dead, Boylan."_

"_I saw your body with a hole in your head. You looked dead to me. Not to mention you're buried in Memorial Field."_

"_There is a cave nearby where I'm held. I can be released, help me," and she vanished._

_Boylan hurried to find the Commander and they looked at the maps for possible locations. "We'll have to narrow the search down when she appears again. I wish she'd come to me," Nathaniel ended wistfully._

"_Why is she coming to us and not you?" Boylan knew there had to be a reason._

"_I wrote down the names in order of appearance and they were some of the last to see her. I hadn't seen her in a week. I can't think of another reason," Nathaniel ran a hand through his cropped hair._

"_She says time is running out. Out for what?" Boylan threw out another question._

"_If she returns to our time, she doesn't have a body. Or, maybe she wants someone to join her in her world. What was it she said, something about she can be released. Maybe she's trapped and her spirit can't move on and she needs our help," Nathaniel threw out possible alternative motives for her contacting the living._

_She appeared to Guzman the next night, which was unusual because he was with Taylor during the occupation. Guzman was manning the guard tower, which was more for the predator control and making sure the kids were home by dark._

"_Guz,"_

_He jumped and raised his rifle, "If I shoot, will you die?"_

"_No, but Nathaniel won't like the hole you put in his tower. Release me from the cave."_

"_Where is the cave?" Finally, someone thought to ask where she was._

"_Under the falls," and she was gone._

_Jim and Nathaniel crawled all over the area, looking for a cave, crevice or anything that might be construed as a cave. _

_That night, Jim sat on his front porch looking at the night sky. Stars were still a thrill after a life of never seeing them. Elizabeth wasn't home yet and he'd just put Zoe to bed._

"_I saw you and Nathaniel at the falls."_

_He jumped up. She was at the corner of his house in the darkness where her form shimmered and he could see through it. "Wash, why didn't you come with us?"_

"_I thought I did right. After I left my body, I encountered the keepers of this world. They informed me I made a mistake and was supposed to live. My death has caused an imbalance in the afterlife. For instance, I had to fight Lucas in the spirit world."_

"_So he's dead?" Lucas disappeared after Skye shot him, and was never heard from again._

"_He died later that day from his wounds and was eaten by a carno removing all trace of him. I was waiting for him when he left his body. We fought in the spirit and I was able to pitch him into the abyss where he'll fall forever. The keepers said because I did this, I deserved one chance to return with a healed body and live my normal lifespan that Lucas denied me. I'm under the falls," and she was gone, leaving Jim searching around the corner and calling her name._

"_You saw her also?"_

_Jim spun to the voice, "I did, Elizabeth. I talked with her. She said she's under the falls waiting for us to retrieve her. She's not supposed to be dead. She also told me Lucas was dead. I need to see the Commander."_

"_I'll go with you."_

_As usual, they found him at his desk, staring at the skull, lost in thought. Jim filled him in._

"_I felt Lucas was dead. I asked Mira right before I killed her if she'd seen him. She told me, she hadn't seen or heard from him after his broken call the day I encountered him and he was shot by Skye."_

_Nathaniel woke on the anniversary of her death and looked at the picture of her he kept on his wall, "I'm going to the falls and look for the cave again, Wash. Come and guide me. I know you're here and listening. You might not appear to me and I don't blame you after I made you stay behind to protect you. I believe what you told Shannon and will keep looking. I'll look forever, Wash. I never told you in life, but I love you."_

_Nobody forgot what day it was even though the Commander issued a decree that the day wasn't to be recognized. However, that day most of the colony was at the falls as if they knew something were about to happen. Nathaniel and Jim looked into the water, churning and bubbling from the falls. Without warning, the Commander plunged into the depths of the pool. He never resurfaced. After five minutes, Guzman and Jim Shannon followed and they also vanished._

"Did the ghost of Alicia Washington get them?" Six-year-old Zoe Shannon asked.

The old man smiled.

"_In a way, yes. You see, there was a cavern under the water with an air pocket." Nathaniel was first to enter and with the flashlight on his head, he looked around. The cavern was lit with a strange glow and he turned his light off. Lying on a slab was the body of Alicia Washington. He approached in disbelief and touched her arm. There was a moving light and he watched as it entered the body. Her eyes opened and she drew a breath._

"_Nathaniel, you came."_

"_Wash," he croaked, fear forgotten as his hand stroked her now warm cheek. "How?"_

"_The keepers. They took my body from the grave and brought it here and tended it. For most of the time I was in stasis while my spirit wandered the Earth. I couldn't talk to anyone although I tried. Then things changed. For a few minutes at a time, they allowed me to appear to someone. They gave me from the anniversary of the occupation until today to convince you to find me."_

"_Why didn't you come to me directly?" Nathaniel helped her sit up, arms around her._

"_I was forbidden to. I had to get my situation across under their rules. The first three times, I wasn't allowed to talk. I was allowed to appear to whomever I wanted, but I had constraints. Each day I was given a different set of people I could see and only a few seconds for each visit. If someone came into the cave today, I would be allowed to re-enter my body, otherwise I'd be alone, wandering the surface for eternity and my body would be allowed to decay."_

_He pushed her hair away, "I see no wound."_

"_The keepers healed me."_

"_Who are the keepers?" Nathaniel released her and took her hand._

"_I don't know, but suspect they seeded mankind on Earth in the beginning and guide us from living to the afterlife."_

"_Are they mortal, like us?"_

"_No. They don't die. I don't know much, but that I'm sure of."_

_A light flashed over them and they turned to Guzman and Shannon, dripping wet and emerging from the pool. After a joyous reunion they resurfaced with Alicia Washington and lived happily ever after."_

The old man stood indicating the story was over and two elders rushed to escort him home. Speculation abounded about his story with some of the kids wanting to believe and the adults scoffing that the old man was indeed finally senile. In the past, he told tales that records bore to be true, but this fable was unbelievable and nobody had ever heard a whisper that Alicia Washington had been killed by this mythical Lucas Taylor. The next morning when he didn't make his way to the market, Nathaniel Taylor IV knocked on his door. It was unlocked when he tried the knob. Inside he found the old man had died in his chair, sitting before pictures of the founders of whom he was one. On the table was a plexpad with a note, _'Play.'_

Nathaniel hit play and saw his great-grandfather talking from the balcony of the Command Center to the original colonist, "Nobody will believe these events so the account of Wash's death will be sealed until the last remaining colonist has died."

Nathaniel studied the accounts of her death and pictures of Lucas Taylor were added. His great-grandfather had a son older than his grandfather, an unknown fact. The founders all added their memories of that horrible time and it was exactly like the old man recounted.

He ordered the last of the first generation colonist buried with honors. As leader of the colony, he let the fable stand and at the funeral slipped something inside the coffin. It was the plexpad. Standing before the grave, he looked at the new stone that read, Joshua Shannon, Last Original Colonist. He moved nearby to where his great grandparents rested side by side. The date of their death brought new meaning for him. They died hours apart on the day Alicia Washington had been killed fifty years before by Lucas Taylor. The story was recanted for generations on the Harvest Festival, also known as October 31st.

The End


End file.
